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Ministries asked to clear gas bills by July 15

Pvt bodies have to pay in six months to avoid disconnection

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
An inter-ministerial meeting yesterday asked various ministries and semi-government bodies to pay their outstanding gas bills by July 15.
The defaulting private organisations will, however, get six months' time to pay their unpaid gas bills in monthly instalments.
The authorities will start sending letters to the private organisations on Thursday asking them to pay their arrears. If they fail to clear their bills by the deadline, their gas connections will be cut off.
Various government and private organisations owe over Tk 1,530 crore as gas bills, including Tk 830 crore unpaid by government and
semi-government organisations under different ministries.
"Financial discipline breaks down if (gas) bills are not paid in time. It is a question of the whole fiscal accountability," Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman told reporters after presiding over the meeting.
Mahmudur Rahman, adviser to the energy ministry, said the ministry is failing to pay the international oil companies (IOC) regularly due to the huge amount of outstanding gas bills.
The finance minister at the meeting said each and every ministry gets its required amount of allocation in the annual budget. He wondered why the ministries are not
paying gas bills, a meeting source said.
Finance Secretary Zakir Ahmed Khan said if this tendency of not paying bills persists, the finance division would cut the bill amount in advance during the budget allocation for the ministries.
Senior officials of different ministries presenting their reports at the meeting complained of various flaws in gas billing, including incorrect bill amount.
The health ministry pointed out that Eden College's gas bill has been shown in their account while the education ministry said Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital's
video footage of the close circuit television installed in the bank and identified one mugger. They have the mugger's criminal records as he came out of jail 15 days ago.
"We've sent two teams outside Dhaka to arrest him and seize the looted money," Deputy Commissioner (South) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mazharul Hoque told The Daily Star arrears have been added to their bills.
Saifur decided to sit with different ministries to discuss the irregularities in gas billing after July 15 and asked them to pay the portion that the ministries believe undisputed by the deadline.
He said there are some sensitive organisations such as hospitals and educational institutions against which drastic actions should not be taken to realise outstanding gas bills. He advised the authorities concerned to try to realise the bills through mutual understanding.
After the meeting Mahmudur Rahman said they are going to take stern actions against the defaulting private organisations if they fail to pay the arrears by the deadline. Their unpaid amount is over Tk 700 crore.
The meeting also discussed the outstanding water bills. Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) reported that it could not realise a large sum of water bills from various organisations.
Communications Minister Nazmul Huda, Science and ICT Minister Abdul Moyeen Khan, Commerce Minister Altaf Hossain Choudhury, State Minister for Land Ukil Abdus Sattar Bhuiyan, State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, and secretaries from different ministries were present in the meeting.